


And the Goddess watches quietly

by IraDeu



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Multi, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 10:06:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15458961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IraDeu/pseuds/IraDeu
Summary: She failed. And they know exactly what's going to happen, can hear the sound of crashing raging apocalypse rushing ever closer, but it's not here yet. For now, they drift on the surface of the ocean, building their fires to warm their hands. They wander through towns that already feel like ghosts, wander through forests that have never felt more alive. Their paths are gone. Their homes don't fit. The world is spinning closer and closer to the place in the sky where calamity shall begin, and it feels too quiet, too slow. Because they've lost - they don't deserve this. They don't deserve this time. They expect to be broken, brittle, shattered, but the world will keep spinning, at least for a little. For now, they're fine.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> friendly warning: this really, really got away from me

**LUCINA, THE SHATTERED**

Chrom had told her to wait, that he and Robin would do it on their own. And so Lucina waited for her parents to return, until the great black column came and she heard her mother being returned to the belly of the beast and heard the beast return to the earth.

She has seen this happen before, and a thousand times in dreams. She is holding her sister (herself) when it comes. Baby Lucy starts to cry.

Lucina wraps Lucy in her blankets and starts to cradle her. Lucy won't stop crying. Lissa comes in.  
Not again. She can't do it again. They've lost, fair and square.

* * *

 

**YARNE, THE LOST**

He's gone. Damn his mother and damn his race - he can wait until Tarren's born to reconvene. The first few months are the hardest months, and Tarren's not going to be alone like he was. Because Panne always dies. Always. She attracts her own death like she's a rotting carcass and death is a great black vulture.  
Morgan tells him to calm down, that the patterns he's seeing are just averages and that there's no reason to leave like this. But Yarne doesn't hear them anymore, and soon Morgan is just as lost as he is, sucked into the vortex.

They die alone, together. And at least, Yarne thinks, he did not die unfollowed, unbelieved, crazy, solitary. They suffer together.

* * *

 

**OLIVIA, THE REPENTANT**

She at least knows how to do one thing, and Gaius finds her in a desert Feroxi bordertown performing for cut coins. She wears a veil. When he looks at her, she averts her gaze. He follows her until two AM like some predatory mother cat and when she steps off the stage he's there to grab her when she falls.  
He carries her outside. The moon is shining. He has done this before, more times than they can count. They were nomads and wanderers and homeless. This was their home.

They hadn't expected to meet again. She'd sort of forgotten what he'd looked like. But not his voice - and when a child came back claiming it was theirs they'd agreed to stop talking.

Maybe in a different life they could feel safe falling in love; maybe in a different world they'd met when the recently-converted thief at Chrom's side guided the dancer through border sands. She'd badgered Inigo the night he came back on the rules of different worlds, and Inigo could never quite keep the little things straight - who married who, who lived, who died. And she saw pieces of her friends piercing through him erratically - saw Henry's detached laugh and Virion's poise and Libra's calm and Gaius' cunning piercing through her son in ways she knew weren't him.

But now they were themselves, and if the two had feelings for each other (spurred by some genetic sexual attraction) Sully was a noble knight that wanted nothing to do with nonmonogamous "byzantine" Feroxi family structures and Gaius and Chrom had enough problems on their hands to add another face to the mix. They were siblings. They were not in love. That was fine, this time. Whether the future would hold without their cooperation remained to be seen. They did not tell Inigo they were siblings. Gaius told him he was gay, which was at least half true and possibly more.

It's cold outside. Gaius spreads his cloak over her, but he's cold too. Sand blows into their faces; the tent behind them is bound solidly to the ground, and the mountains and sheer cliff in the distance flicker in the lights behind them.

She tells herself she's a far traveler in exotic lands, tells herself she's a proud Ylissean singer writing an opera on travel. She wants to grab Gaius and drag him to the mountains and see what's there, what they can find, see what Ferox looks like from afar.

But she doesn't know where her son is. And she doesn't know where her wife is or why her wife left. And Chrom is dead. And neither of them can get warm.

* * *

 

**LIBRA, THE PROTECTOR**

Henry was hell-bent on avenging Chrom. Libra was fine with following him, fine with just keeping his husband alive, until Olivia had been hit with the curse and Henry had taken it for her, sucked it out of her body and watched her drain life out of him. Libra had yelled at Henry about that. And Gaius. And Olivia, too, a little bit. Before Panne had snapped at him and Henry grabbed at his clothes, begging to be pulled up, still smiling.

And so Libra had taken him here. There were shrines like this dotted around the Ylissean countryside. This one was a small tower, with windows designed so that the sun or moon was always shining on the statue of the Goddess in the middle. The brick was vaguely blue and the shrine looked like it was underwater. Libra felt whole, subdued here. Like his thoughts were quieter.

Libra has carried Henry to the second floor and tucked him into a bed and barricaded the door. There was enough food here for two adult men for three months, which was more than enough. Henry would not die alone, the Goddess would die unspoiled, and Libra wouldn't be a monster. Never again. He started on the protection sigils.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why is it that all the fun dads to ship are just hot garbage fuck me up with some Sully!Lucina and Virion!Yarne

**VIRION, THE DRIFTING**

His father had been dead for seventeen years, and Virion had paid enough respect to him while he was alive to bother. His mother still called him Virginia - as if she wasn't aware the amount of effort (and number of handsome wizards seduced) for his body, this respect. His lands had been razed by Grima's return, and he wasn't anxious to look anyone in the eyes and tell them he'd failed.

Because he had. And he was far too old to pretend shit like this didn't get to him, to pretend he was still freewheeling and roguish, to pretend he could still be anything other than exactly what he was.

And so there was nowhere for him to go, nowhere for him to be. He fights with his wife on the front lines, and he lives on through her. He is no-one and nowhere, shall never have the chance to be whole again. And so his child shall be the best person he can make them.

* * *

 

**GAIUS, THE UNSHAKEABLE**

Gaius takes her far away from there. Memories blend in his mind; he doesn't know who this woman is, but he's been close to her forever. There's a little shrine here, with a statue. Olivia once told him it felt like the sky, or maybe like being in a cave, safe and cool, back when they were teenagers, before their mother had died and their father drank and Gaius got drafted and Olivia did whatever she had to. Before everything.

They're back, now. The curse still lingers on Olivia. She tries to look like she's fine, but he can feel how she's dragging at his cape. The shrine glows in the distance, but the air thins the closer they get, the forest brush crackling loudly beneath their feet.

He pulls at the doorknob. It doesn't budge. He knocks. Olivia flinches at the noise.

He hears footsteps. He looks through a window - Libra looks fine, for very few definitions of fine. He looks like he does not have an illness. Libra sees him in the window and seems surprised.

"What are you doing here?"

"Visiting the shrine."

"I - "

"... Hey, Golden, have you been waiting out here this whole time?"

"No."

"What have you been doing, then?"

"Gaius, what's going on?"

"Is that Olivia?"

"... Please let us in."

He hears a silence, followed by a frantic scraping, and the door opens.

"Where's Henry," Olivia asks, and Libra almost keeps his composure. The Goddess statue looks beautiful. The casket gleams. Henry looks perfect.

And they take Libra outside and wait to die. They do not fight, this time. The Goddess watches over them, blessing their return. The Goddess, after all, loses no-one.

* * *

 

**HENRY, THE MAGE**

He remembers Lissa; the day of their marriage and getting his own lab in the castle. He remembers Morgan and the thousand faces they'd adopt, and he remembers the day he gave them a talisman that let them appear however they wanted. He didn't realize until so much later that the talisman had stuck, had embedded in their soul, had grown beyond its origin, had been forgotten.

He remembers Panne. She'd come back holding Validar's head in one hand and Falchion in the other, and she'd asked him for something, anything at all that would help her stay alive. The Shepherds needed a new leader, and she'd sacrifice anything. Panne was a god, but Henry wondered when she'd find out that Tarren would never be born, that she'd never have a child named Tarren, that Tarren's soul had been staved from earth by an act of accidental unspeakable violence, that Taguel women would die with her. The spell was what you need in exchange for what you want. He felt bad for Yarne, sometimes. Wondered what it was like to forget you were a twin. He'd held Yarne after that - he was crying over a trauma he couldn't remember. And when he looks at the cradle it tries to come back and he swallows his bile down.

It occurs to him he may no longer be in reality.

He met Libra. Henry was bad at healing himself. Every spell he had ended up having some sort of price, some sort of pain attached to it. He didn't like killing birds, and God liked Libra and Libra liked him.

Sometimes, Henry has problems saying what he means. And it takes ages for him to learn how to talk around Libra, how to say things and not scare him, how and when to touch so it doesn't hurt.

They share their first kiss (grown men the both of them!) in the heat of battle and Henry is flabbergasted and Libra acts like he doesn't know what came over him. When the fight is done, Libra lets Henry into his tent for the first time (Libra is a very private person) and they talk about nothing like they're kids until dawn, and it's awkward at first (everything with him is) but it's the life they want and they settle into themselves, punchdrunk on intimacy, on love, on each other.

And that feels real.

* * *

 

**SULLY, THE LOYAL**

"There has to be something I can do to help you."

"Mom, there's - "

"Is there anyone you want to recruit next time? We can spend our time - "

"Mom, where's your..."

"I thought you didn't like her."

"... What did I do?"

"... I'm sorry. I - "

"Mom, I... I've lived enough lives to know that you don't want to talk about this. That I'm supposed to be your independent Amazon and I just... I know what happens, here, and I want you to be okay. I know I'm not supposed to do this. We promised, all of us, that we'd try and take care of each other this time. And I'm sorry I'm not the daughter you wanted and I'm sorry that I lied to you and I'm sorry for being mean to Olivia and I - I just want to... I'll do whatever it takes. I know I hurt you. I'm sorry."

"... We made you inherit all our worst parts, huh?"

"I don't want it to be like this. Not anymore."

"... It doesn't have to, kiddo."

"I've never done this. You always die here, every time."

"Well, then we do something different. Lucina's missing, right?"

"Mhm."

"How about we find her?"

"I've looked. I - "

"I have some friends around here that owe me some favors."

"... Thank you."

"I'm sorry, kiddo."

* * *

 

**LISSA, THE JOYFUL**

She'll never grow up. She can't make it fit in her mind any other way. Maribelle seems unshaken, unshakable, and Lissa sits in her room and holds her knitting needles in her hands and stares out the window and watches the city below her.

Maribelle is off in some far province, helping defend a town against Risen attacks. Lissa wanders through the throne room. They crowned her, but Frederick fired everyone, told them all to go home. Emmeryn's crown feels wrong. Chrom's throne feels wrong. And she's never known what to think of her father, about everything. She wants to blame him. They found her in his room, the one they sealed off. She won't speak. She tries - the words come out wrong. Lissa's the queen now, Ylisse cascading from father to daughter to son to her. Lissa waits for Maribelle's letters, tears them open with a shard of Lucina's broken Falchion.

For a few minutes, she is taken to a world where nothing matters, where she is happy. But then the world comes back inside, and not even Maribelle can bring back Lissa's smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i did sorry


	3. Chapter 3

**KJELLE, THE PATIENT**

Lucina's a quitter, and Kjelle's going to find her if it kills her. They've done this before, and they'll pass on the mantle as many times as it takes. Kjelle has raised herself a thousand times in a thousand places, and if it just happens that this permutation of Lucina is too weak to take Falchion through the gate then Kjelle will do it for her.

Lucina always said she wanted to go to the ocean. She arrives in time to see the water trap Inigo. Not there, then. Something in her heart aches, but she doesn't know why. Doesn't remember -

It doesn't matter. This has happened before, she feels. She's not a quitter; that's what matters.

Lucina is sitting at the foot of a mountain. Her foot is bleeding. She wants to run, but can't. Kjelle calls out to her atop her mother's horse; she turns her head away in shame.

"Lucina?"

"Please leave me alone."

"... Why do you insist on doing this by yourself?"

"Because - because I should be strong enough. Every heir before me's been able to - "

"Lucina?"

"And I'm just one idiot _kid_ that - "

"Lucina."

"Yeah?"

"... We're here for you."

* * *

 

**INIGO, THE LAST**

Virion told him that all of them acted like they were overcompensating for something, that some part of them had been irrevocably broken, that learning how to live on your own and without hope ruins you for living with it. None of them fit into polite society, not really, and Inigo fumbled his way through flirting and parties until Olivia had pulled him aside and gently, slowly told him that he was too broken for love, too broken for anything.

She didn't word it like that. But he knew that's what she meant. Olivia didn't get married this time around, so he doesn't have anyone to care for, anyone to teach. His dad was Gaius, but Gaius won't talk to Olivia this time around. And his - his mentor's dad was Henry. Inigo remembers him with a dreamy air, a crazed detachment. He followed Henry around to the end, he remembers.

Sometimes, if he closes his eyes, he can remember everything, the sum of a thousand lives overlapping pressed flush onto his eyes and he can't breathe. There is no permutation of events that will make them strong enough to defeat this, but Falchion willing they can keep the world from ending. Like this. Forever.  
Lucina kissed him and told him she was going to destroy Falchion and he doesn't know where she is. That's never happened before. He has the memories of a thousand people that are not him.

The devil met him in a dream yesterday, said that if he came to his realm he'd live a normal life. He just needed to find someone. The details were sketchy, but Inigo isn't picky. He's leaving. He doesn't know what's going to happen to his soul, if he's just managed to escape this once or if his mother is never going to fall in love again. He figures it doesn't really matter, at this point.

So here he is. The ocean stretches ahead of him. He's too much of a coward to swim, so he waits until the devil drags him down. It feels like dying. It feels fine.

* * *

 

**PANNE, THE BRAVE**

She's prepared for the apocalypse. This isn't the first time this has happened to her, and if anything can survive the end it'll be the Taguel. She takes Virion and Yarne and Morgan and baby Tarren and they head out into the woods, a small pack.

Assuming that Morgan and Tarren's babies can find mates, that enough people survive the calamity, a population stable with a small percentage of Taguel blood. Maybe it would be wise of her to take multiple mates. Blame it on her rabbit instincts if her mother comes to her in dreams. She builds a hutch. When Grima tears the sky in two they are underground and safe and -

She wakes up in her bed. She's still pregnant with Tarren. She can't do this. Virion is still asleep. Yarne is still gone.

She's going to die, she realizes. And there's no piece of knowledge, no survival skill, no story she has that can comfort her.

She prays. It doesn't feel natural for her; she's never been the religious type. Yarne's told her the progression of events - by now, the Goddess should have her path to humanity broken. Forsaken -

_HELLO, MY CHILD._

* * *

 

**MARIBELLE, THE TENACIOUS**

Maribelle is not where Lissa thinks she is. Maribelle is housing Lucina. Not that she wasn't ever squelching border skirmishes - they've just stopped. And Maribelle has a new project.

Lucina is despondent. Like her aunt, really. Maribelle hates that she can't stand to be around them, but if this works, they'll both be fine. Happy. Alive.

She tells Lucina she'll destroy the sword. Lucina vanishes the next day. Baby Lucy likes her, but Maribelle's never seen a more colic baby.

She finds the gate, baby Lucy on her back. She stabs the sword into the ground in front of it. Someone'll find it.

* * *

 

**MORGAN, THE THOUSAND**

The fog is intense. They don't know where Yarne is. Or - or anyone else. They'd seen Lucina, they remembered. And - Falchion? The sword is cold and strong in their hands.

Was this the plan? Were they even born in this timeline? Morgan can't remember a birth for ages, and they're still here. Something in their memories is breaking, crackling like static loud and screaming and raw.

The sword focuses their mind. They want to see their mother. They want to go home. They want to make their mother back out of whatever she's been absorbed into. They want to make their home safe, back into what it once was.

The gate blinks, in acknowledgement. The power Morgan feels is unfamiliar. The Goddess, like all beings, cannot take care of herself. Through her steward's love she has been revived. Morgan doesn't understand what's going on, feels a sharp vine falling and grabs onto it as their mind tries its best to devour itself, to shatter scream and Morgan is split directly in two.

They see themself, reflected, as in a mirror. Falchion shines in their hands, twin and shining swords.

And then they are spat coughing on the ground. They are in ruins. Their mother stands before them.

Morgan understands that they are going to die. Somehow, this does not scare them. They feel as though they have bigger things to be scared about, like obliteration is the least of their worries. The dragon is big and black and made of ink, and its roar does not bring them to their knees. 

Falchion moves, as if of its own accord. Morgan is but a servant to it. What Morgan wants has been subsumed by what they need; the souls of everyone Morgan has ever loved and who has ever loved Morgan, a thousand different parents and lovers, course through them, their memories clinging like spiderwebs. Morgan has been lost; but, through Morgan, the world has been found.

***

Morgan watches the world a thousand times, trying to find the world in which everyone was happy. They do this while their sibling waits, while the oroborous of their mother's demise grows smaller and smaller. Their heart is breaking. They do not know why. They have all the time in the world; they shall appear whole, as they wish; the Goddess now has the power to not lose her sheep and now has the presence to await their return; and they all shall have the chance to be whole again.

* * *

 

**LUCINA, THE ONLY**

She doesn't know if this will work, but it's her only chance. The gate is unpredictable and wild; they could end up scattered. They haven't done this before, haven't had the chance to prepare.

But Lucina has failed at a thousand things a thousand times, and she knows what it feels like when you're about to fail. And this isn't it. This is something else, something sugary and sweet.

They've lost so much. But now? Now they're home. Inigo's fingers curl around hers. They've made it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wouldja look at that! that was almost thematically reasonable! unfortunately i don't have the energy required to clean this up good luck


End file.
